Penance
by CountryGirl914
Summary: Why are House and Wilson friends? Wilson has his reasons.


**A/N:** I should really have worked on my homework last night. Especially since I had a 7:30 class this morning. And if I _am_ going to work on a fanfic, it should be the next chapter to Second Time Around that I've promised to let **vartanluvva** read before it gets posted (I'm sorry, Michelle! Forgive me!). But inspiration struck, and you never know if it'll still be there in the morning.

"Three Stories" gave us backstory on House's infarction, but it didn't give any indication to how Wilson fit into the story, or how he and House met. This is an idea. The highlighted portion is a flashback.

**Feedback:** Gives me warm fuzzies, and is the only way I know how I'm doing. Please review!

* * *

How? Why? 

Wilson had been asked those questions more times than he could count. _How_ could a mature, charming man like him be friends with a curmudgeon like House? _Why_? He always retorted with some immature sexual remark or a joke about how House knew where all the bodies were buried. But it wasn't true. There was one body that his friend didn't know about—no one did, actually, not even Cuddy, which was a miracle in itself. He wasn't sure how that had happened. Cuddy knew that everyone had to do clinic duty. Even him.

_

* * *

Wilson leaned against the nurses' desk in the clinic and sighed. It had been a long day. Dr. Fisher, the head of the oncology department, had just announced his retirement, and the gossip around the hospital was that he was a shoe-in for the position. Wilson, however, wouldn't consider it a sure thing until he'd signed on the dotted line. That anxiety, combined with the stress from his rapidly deteriorating second marriage, was giving him the biggest headache of his life._

_A cacophony of voices drew his attention to the corner of the room, to his last patient of the day, who had come in just minutes earlier. A tall, athletic man with what looked like perpetual stubble gracing his jaw line, he was currently slumped in a waiting room chair, face contorted in obvious agony. A raven-haired woman—girlfriend, wife?—was sitting beside him, trying her best to calm him down, to stop his cries of pain._

_Wilson glanced at the wall clock, wincing as the man's voice caused his headache to intensify. He only had five minutes until he was free to go. This man's visit would take fifteen minutes to half an hour at the very least. Probably longer, considering the amount of pain he was in._

_He turned in the other direction, searching for another doctor in the clinic. "Wallace!" he called, and the man came over to him. Wallace was pretty new, but he was the only other doctor there, and Wilson just wanted to leave. "Could you take the man in the corner for me? My head is splitting; I need to get home." He smiled in relief when the doctor answered in the affirmative. "Thanks—I owe you one."_

_It didn't take long for Wilson to get to his car and out of the parking garage. Once the headache subsided, he'd take his wife out to dinner to celebrate his apparently eminent promotion. Maybe that would help bring them closer again—he didn't want to get another divorce._

* * *

It had been Wilson who suggested hiring House for the diagnostics position. He'd made Cuddy swear that she'd never reveal that fact; she'd been confused at his vehemence, but agreed that he was the best for the job. He had shadowed the other doctor, noting the cane, the limp, the pills. He'd thought he was being subtle until House had reared around in the hallway, facing him and sarcastically asking if stalking was a requirement in this place. Wilson had shot something back—he couldn't even remember what anymore—and the two had hit off instantly. It was a real friendship, based on mutual likes and dislikes, similar senses of humor. So Wilson had many reasons for being friends with House. 

But there had been times when things had become strained, made fragile and brittle by House's abrasive manner, where anyone else would have given up on the friendship, broken it off and moved on. But Wilson would think back to the clinic, and soldier on.

How? _Why_?

He had his reasons.

* * *

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